The Evil that men do
by jarec
Summary: Something to commemorate a horror we must never forget


AUTHORS NOTE: This little piece was written for a friend of mine to help him through Holocaust Memorial Day. His grandparents barely survived the Nazis, so he's usually pretty down on this day. I though he might like to know that some one IS thinking of him and his problem.

Also note this is a one shot. I will never use these characters again.

This is dedicated to my friend, to his anscenstors Saul and Rebekah Steiglitz . But also, to the many Nazi hunters who even today pursue the monsters of the camps. Such evil can't go unpunished, and mass-murderers don't deserve to die in bed.

THE EVIL THAT MEN DO

He walked through the gates, as he had every year for more than sixty years. Still it sickened him. Still it terrified him. Still it reminded him that, no matter how bad he or the other Cainites were, the average human being was capable of much worse.

He looked up at the sign, the same after all these years. It somehow managed to conjure the very worst things in human nature, all the horrors and atrocities of the world, and all the nightmares and phantoms of his own psyche in just one word.

Auschwitz.

Abraham (ben Levi ve Rachel) Fleisher knew he was no saint. He'd killed many dozens of people over the course of his long life, and he would no doubt kill dozens more. But never, not in his darkest revenge fantasies, did he imagine subjecting his worst enemies to the things that had happened here. He shuddered at the thought and fought to keep the moemories away.

His senses suddenly janged, warning him that he was not alone. He turned and saw a large man, clearly homeless glaring at him with purest loathing. Yet all was not as it seemed. Auspex revealed the man to be a Lupine, one of the Kindreds ancient enemies. Ordinarily, the Archons finely honed combat reflexes would have set him in motion.

But here, in this place, on this day, he honestly couldn't bring himself to care.

The werewolf growled in good German "What are you doing here, coffin-worm? Enjoying the scenery of destruction and murder? Come to gloat?"

NOW Abraham was angry. " Gloat? GLOAT! Listen to me, animal, and listen well. I came here to honor my MOTHER. She was taken here in 1943, tormented, raped, and then disposed of by men not fit to lick her BOOTS! I know your kind ANIMAL! I KNOW YOU HELPED THE BEASTS THAT DID THIS! SO SPARE ME YOUR SANCTIMONIOUS BULLSHIT, NAZI, AND GET OUT BEFORE I DEFILE THIS PLACE WITH YOUR PRECIOUS ARYAN BLOOD!"

By the end of this speech he was literally shrieking. Not just from rage but from fear and horror and shame and grief as well. As he had spoken the memories had come flooding back. The men in black uniforms (they had seemed giants to the ten year old Abraham) taking his father away in the dead of night. Of two years hiding in a basement. Of the night, his thirteenth birthday, when the Polish landlord had decided to turn them in rather than risk the wrath of the Reich. Of being herded into cattle cars for the endless trip west. Of the Selection at the camp, when he had been deemed strong enough to work. Of his last glimpse, a month after arriving, of his mother as she was marched into Bergen-Belsen, and the gas chambers. Of the hell he'd endured until the Allies had liberated the camp.

It was too much. He began to weep uncontrollably, the sobs wracking his body. The strength fled from his knees and he pitched forward. Some time later (a second? A minute? An hour?) he became aware of strong arms holding him, and of a surprisingly gentle voice saying "its all right, its all right" in Yiddish. He blinked the blood-tears away.

The wolf-man was kneeling on the ground, holding him as one might hold a small child. Abraham was amazed to see that the mans own face was stained with tears. His amazement must have shown on his face because the man began to speak.

"My name is Emmanuel Grossbaum, I was born in 1932 in Berlin. IN 1941my parents sent me to Spain to live with a friend of theirs. I never saw them again. In the sixties I managed to trace them to this…this gate of Hell. I know what you feel, my friend, for I feel it too."

Abraham sniffled without shame, and rose to his feet. He felt better than he had in a long time. Normally he would have been deeply embarassed by such a moent of weakness but not now.

Tommorow, he and Emmanuel Grossbaum would be enemies once again. If he saw Emmanuel Grossbaum he would do his best to kill him, knowing that Emmanuel Grossbaum would e doing the same. But for right now he and Emmanuel were brothers.

"Do you" he asked "ever wonder how they can do it? How they can build…this…and then call US the monsters? What drives them to do it?"

Emmanuel sighed deeply "I don't know. The Garou believe that many humans are tainted by the Wyrm, by pure evil. Perhaps. But I KNEW some men who later joined the SS, and they were no more intrinsically evil than I was. I just don't know. Let us do what we came to do, and let us do it together"

Together they began the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead _"Yitgadal ve yitkadash shmeh rabah…"_

And for one moment in its dark history,Auschwitz was a place of peace.

THE END

Final notes:

1) I don't want to hear any denials of the holocaust in reviews. If you don't think it happened either keep it to yoursel for explain to my friends grandfather what happened to his entire family in 1943, I'm sure he'd like to know. Anyone who doubts this is either racist, ignorant or an idiot.

2) I'm not to sure of my chronology or history so if I got something wrong (like when they liberated auschwitz) I deeply apologize

3)Abrahams accusations are based off the fact that the Get of Fenris suproted the Nazis.

4) For gods sake people, we've been killing each other for next to no reason at all for millenia. I'm not normally a peacenik but when will it all stop!

Written May the 4th 2005,


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